The world is populated with many different objects, to which we often attribute properties: we say, for example, that grass is green, that the earth is spherical, that humans are animals, and that murder is wrong. We also take it that these properties are things in their own right: there is something in which being green, or spherical, or an animal, or wrong, consists, and that certain scientific or normative projects are engaged in uncovering the essences of such properties. In (...) light of this, an important question arises: what kind of things should we take properties themselves to be? -/- In Properties, Douglas Edwards gives an engaging, accessible, and up-to-date introduction to the many theories of properties available. Edwards charts the central positions in the debate over properties, including the views that properties are universals, that properties are constructed from tropes, and that properties are classes of objects, and assesses the benefits and disadvantages of each. Attempts to deny the existence of properties are also considered, along with ‘pluralist’ proposals, which aim to accommodate the different kinds of properties that are found in various philosophical debates. -/- Properties is the ideal introduction to this topic and will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students wishing to learn more about the important roles that properties have played, and continue to play, in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

: This paper explores how consideration of the notions of naturalness and eligibility, which have played an increasingly significant role in contemporary metaphysics, might impact on the study of truth. In particular, it aims to demonstrate how taking such notions seriously may be of benefit to ‘representational’ theories of truth by showing how the naturalness of truth on a representational account provides a response to the ‘Scope Problem’ presented by Lynch (2009).

One of the many ways that ?deflationary? and ?inflationary? theories of truth are said to differ is in their attitude towards truth qua property. This difference used to be very easy to delineate, with deflationists denying, and inflationists asserting, that truth is a property, but more recently the debate has become a lot more complicated, owing primarily to the fact that many contemporary deflationists often do allow for truth to be considered a property. Anxious to avoid inflation, however, these deflationists (...) are at pains to point out that the truth property, on their view, is not a property of any significant interest. Correspondingly, inflationists have seen this as an opportunity to refine what kind of property they think truth is, which?according to them?moves their views beyond deflationism. The upshot of this is that there are number of different accounts in the literature of what distinguishes an inflationary truth property from a deflationary one, or?as it is sometimes put?what distinguishes a ?substantive? property from an ?insubstantive? one. This has made it hard to pin down exactly what is at issue at the metaphysical level between deflationists and inflationists, which makes it increasingly hard to see how debates between them are properly phrased. Given that these positions represent the two central attitudes towards truth in contemporary debates, this makes for a serious obstacle for the project of discerning the correct theory of truth. The aim of this paper is to discern the best way to distinguish between substantive and insubstantive properties, and thus to restore some focus to these debates. I argue that the three central distinctions in the literature fail, and offer what I take to be a more promising distinction in terms of a graded distinction between abundant and sparse properties. (shrink)

Perhaps the two main contemporary formulations of ethical naturalism – Synthetic Ethical Naturalism (SEN) and Analytical Descriptivism – seem to conflict with plausible views about cases where moral debate and disagreement is possible. Both lack safeguards to avoid divergence of reference across different communities, which can scupper the prospects for genuine moral disagreement. I explore the prospects for supplementing both views with Lewis's notion of eligibility, arguing that this can solve the problem for a modified form of analytical descriptivism, and (...) for a modified form of SEN too (though perhaps more controversially). I close by considering the appropriateness of using the notions of eligibility and joint-carving in ethics. (shrink)

Alethic pluralism is the view that truth requires different treatment in different domains of discourse. The basic idea is that different properties play important roles in the analysis of truth in different domains of discourse, such as discourse about the material world, moral discourse, and mathematical discourse, to take three examples. Alethic disjunctivism is a kind of alethic pluralism, and is the view that truth is to be identified with the disjunctive property that is formed using each of the domain-specific (...) properties as disjuncts (i.e., in the view's simplest form, truth is the property of either having domain-specific property 1, or domain-specific property 2, and so on). This paper evaluates the prospects for alethic disjunctivism. In particular, it outlines the proper formulation of the view, and assesses some concerns that the disjunctive property lacks the pedigree necessary to be considered a truth property. I begin by briefly outlining the motivations for alethic pluralism, before noting four general constraints on formulations of the view. I then consider a ‘simple’ formulation of alethic disjunctivism, and recommend an amendment. I then demonstrate that the candidate truth property specified by this new formulation is able to meet the central constraints required for it to be considered a viable formulation of alethic pluralism. The final part of this demonstration involves making some distinctions between different kinds of disjunctive properties, and arguing that disjunctive properties are not necessarily highly abundant properties: some are more sparse than others. (shrink)

What is truth? What precisely is it that truths have that falsehoods lack? Pluralists about truth (or “alethic pluralists”) tend to answer these questions by saying that there is more than one way for a proposition, sentence, belief—or any chosen truth-bearer—to be true. In this paper, I argue that two of the most influential formations of alethic pluralism, those of Wright (1992, 2003a) and Lynch (2009), are subject to serious problems. I outline a new formulation, which I call “simple determination (...) pluralism,” that I claim offers better prospects for alethic pluralism, with the potential to have applications for pluralist theories beyond truth. (shrink)

Advocates of traditional views on truth such as the correspondence and coherence theories converge on two theses about truth: substantivism and monism. According to the former thesis, truth consists in some substantive property or relation F. According to the latter thesis, there is exactly one property or relation (whether substantive or not) in terms of which truth is to be accounted for across all truth-apt domains of discourse. The correspondence theorist thus has it that a proposition is true just in (...) case it corresponds with reality, i.e. just in case a certain substantive relation holds between language and the world. Furthermore, this is so for any truth-apt discourse: whether we are dealing with propositions about mathematics, medium-sized dry goods, or legal matters truth always and everywhere consists in correspondence with reality.1 Recently, resistance to alethic traditionalism has emerged from two camps. The deflationist takes issue with substantivism: there is nothing more to truth than what is captured by instances of the following well-known schema: (T) 〈p〉 is true iff p. 2 According to the deflationist, substantive properties (or relations) such as correspondence and coherence have no role to play in an account of truth. At most, a deﬂationist will allow that all true propositions share a “lightweight” property of falling under the concept of truth. Deﬂationists about truth thus reject the metaphysical project that aims to uncover the deep or substantive nature of truth. Truth, according to the deflationist, is merely a logical device that serves certain functions such as endorsing a proposition and making (potentially infinite) generalizations. For instance, instead of saying that the empty set is a subset of every set and that Bob believes 〈the empty set is a subset of every set〉, the power set of an infinite set is uncountable and Bob believes 〈the power set of an infinite set is uncountable〉, and so on for Bob’s other beliefs about set.... (shrink)

Alethic pluralism, on one version of the view , is the idea that truth is to be identified with different properties in different domains of discourse. 1 Whilst we operate with a univocal concept of truth, and a uniform truth predicate, the thought is that the truth property changes from one domain to the next. So the truth property for talk about the nature and state of the material world may be different from the truth property for moral discourse .Tappolet (...) challenged alethic pluralism by asking how it can account for the truth of mixed compounds, such as a mixed conjunction like ‘this cat is wet and funny’, where each of the conjuncts are from different domains of discourse, and thus assessable in terms of different truth properties. She argues that the alethic pluralist is left in a dilemma: either admit of a ‘generic’ truth property, which can be possessed by propositions from all domains, thus rendering the plural ways of being true obsolete, or deny the truth of mixed conjunctions.In Edwards 2008, I argued that there is route out of Tappolet's dilemma. Briefly, I suggested that we acknowledge that the truth of a mixed conjunction is dependent on the truth of its conjuncts, and we should explain the truth of the conjunction by saying that it is true just in case each of its conjuncts is true. This, I argued, gives us an account of the truth of the conjunction without needing to appeal to a troublesome ‘generic’ truth property.Aaron Cotnoir criticizes my solution to Tappolet's problem. Cotnoir argues that my solution to the problem admits of an unacceptable ‘proliferation’ of truth properties, and smuggles in a generic truth property. I …. (shrink)

Philosophers are often thought to be in the business of analysing concepts, in particular, concepts taken to be fundamental in human thought and practice: truth, goodness, beauty, knowledge, meaning, rightness, causation, to name just a few. But what can we expect from such analyses? Can we expect a comprehensive account of one concept in terms of one or more others? Can we expect to reduce these kinds of concepts to concepts which are taken to be more fundamental? This study is (...) concerned with a particular approach to conceptual analysis, minimalism, which, in general, offers very modest answers to these questions. Minimalist theories, by and large, hold that the strategy for analysing concepts ought not to go much further than the collection of some rather ordinary, ‘platitudinous’ thoughts about those concepts. Accordingly, minimalist theories do not often encourage ambitious pro jects of giving a comprehensive analysis of one concept in terms of another, where this process encourages the construction of such biconditional claims as ‘X falls under concept F iff X falls under concept G’. Just how far we are to extend our analysis beyond the point of a collection of platitudinous principles is a point of contention between different types of minimalist theories. This study has three main aims. Firstly, it aims to give a taxonomy of minimalist theories. Secondly, it aims to examine in detail the types of minimalist theories pertinent to the study of truth, and propose the best view available. Thirdly, it aims to examine how the minimalist methodology may be extended to other normative concepts, taking the concept of goodness as a case study. (shrink)

The problem of mixed conjunctions, due to Tappolet (2000), threatens to undermine alethic pluralism by showing that it cannot account for the truth of conjunctions in which the conjuncts spring from different domains of discourse. In this paper I argue, firstly, that the problem is not just a problem for alethic pluralism and, secondly, that the problem can be solved.

In the TACITUS project for using commonsense knowledge in the understanding of texts about mechanical devices and their failures, we have been developing various commonsense theories that are needed to mediate between the way we talk about the behavior of such devices and causal models of their operation. Of central importance in this effort is the axiomatization of what might be called commonsense metaphysics. This includes a number of areas that figure in virtually every domain of discourse, such as granularity, (...) scales, time, space, material, physical objects, shape, causality, functionality, and force. Our effort has been to construct core theories of each of these areas, and then to define, or at least characterize, a large number of lexical items in terms provided by the core theories. In this paper we discuss our methodological principles and describe the key ideas in the various domains we are investigating. (shrink)